GAIA BY LUKE JERRAM COMES TO LANDMARK ARTS CENTRE
London: 16 May 2023: This summer, southwest London’s Landmark Arts Centre is hosting Luke Jerram’s monumental new Earth artwork, Gaia. The arts centre is offering the public thousands of free tickets to see Gaia from 16 June to 2 July, which will be the focal point of the first-ever Richmond Arts & Ideas Festival.
The Landmark is offering Gaia for free, making the world-famous art installation accessible to all. Donations will be welcome and with a large uplift in visitor numbers advance booking will be required www.landmarkartscentre.org/gaia/ . In addition to the installation, visitors will be able to enjoy a suite of arts programming to complement Gaia, including late night openings, music concerts and family activities.
Luke Jerram said: “I hope visitors to Gaia get to see the Earth as if from space; an incredibly beautiful and precious place. An ecosystem we urgently need to look after – our only home. Halfway through the Earth’s sixth mass extinction, we urgently need to wake up, and change our behaviour. We need to quickly make the changes necessary, to prevent run away Climate Change.”
Measuring seven metres in diameter and suspended inside the Landmark’s stunning space, Gaia features high-resolution NASA imagery of Earth’s surface* and slowly revolves as a specially composed surround sound by BAFTA award-winning composer, Dan Jones is played alongside the sculpture.
The installation creates a sense of the ‘Overview Effect,’ which was first described by author Frank White in 1987. Common features of this experience for astronauts are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment. Gaia is a visual representation of the fragility and beauty of the earth.
Landmark’s Visual Arts Curator, Abigail Thomas, commented: “Luke Jerram’s Gaia is an awe-inspiring sight; the artwork drew me in the moment I saw it and I knew we needed to exhibit it. The experience will inspire the community to respond to global issues such as climate change and environmental problems facing our beautiful blue marble of a planet, as well as simply being an inspirational sensory experience.”
Landmark Director, Harper Ray, commented: “Gaia is perfect for the Landmark. The bar was set high in 2022 when audiences were wowed by our national premier of the COP 26 artwork, which sparked demand for us to deliver more environmentally focussed artworks. Luke’s Gaia is magnificent and will more than satisfy audience appetite, as well as marking the Landmark out as a beacon of best practice for promoting sustainability in the arts.”
Tim Corum, Head of Richmond Arts Service said: “We are really excited to be working in partnership with the Landmark Arts Centre in bringing Gaia to the borough as the centrepiece of our Richmond Arts & Ideas Festival. The Gaia art installation is awesome and will be one of the major highlights of the boroughwide festival in June.”
Gaia will be the ‘high visibility’ anchor of the Richmond Arts & Ideas festival and act as the catalyst to spark conversation around the theme of, Together & Change; the curatorial thread which unites the programme of events taking place during the festival of dance, music, art, theatre, and conversation. https://richmondartsandideas.com
Gaia has been created in partnership with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Bluedot and the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres. *The imagery for the artwork has been compiled from Visible Earth series, NASA.
The Landmark Arts Centre is an independent charity (1047080) dedicated to offering a wide range of arts education activities for children, young people, and adults by providing a stimulating, year-round, programme of live events including music, comedy, poetry, and dance as well as providing exhibition opportunities for visual artists and designer-makers through art fairs and group and solo exhibitions, to help care for our amazing Grade II* listed building.
Richmond Arts & Ideas Festival delivered by the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames in partnership with cultural organisational across the borough the inaugural festival aims to present a diverse, relevant, and exceptional programme, responding to the festival theme, Together & Change – it is a new collaboratively produced festival bringing organisations, producers and artists together under one banner.
For interviews, image requests and further information contact:
Landmark Arts Centre: Heather Griffith news@landmarkartscentre.org
Richmond Arts & Ideas Festival: Fahim.Qureshi@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk
